Reconstructing Exhibitions in Art Institutions spans exhibition histories as anti-apartheid activism within South African community arts; collectivities and trade unions in Argentina; Civil Rights movements and Black communities in Baltimore; institutional self-critique within the neoliberal museum; reframing feminisms in USA; and revisiting Cold War Modernisms in Eastern Europe among other themes.
An interdisciplinary project with a global reach, this edited volume considers the theme of exhibitions as political resistance as well as cultural critique from global perspectives including South Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, USA and West Europe. The book includes contributions by ten authors from the fields of art history, social sciences, anthropology, museum studies, provenance research, curating and exhibition histories. The edited volume finally examines exhibition reconstructions both as a symptom of advanced capitalism, geopolitical dynamics and social uprisings, and as a critique of imperial and capitalist violence. Art historical areas covered in the book include conceptualism, minimalism, modern painting, global modernisms, archives and community arts.
This volume will be of interest to a wide range of audiences including art historians, curators, gallery studies and museum professionals, and also to scholars and students from the fields of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and history. It would also appeal to a general public with an interest in modern and contemporary art exhibitions.
"Introduction: Reconstructing Exhibitions: Global Perspectives on Art Institutions, Communities and Activism; Part 1. Institutions; 1. When Competition Becomes Form: Exhibition Reconstructions and the Limits of Institutional Self-Critique; 2. Other Primary Structures and the Theatricality of Re-Staging Exhibitions; Part 2. Communities; 3 The ""Remembering Exhibitions"" of South African Community Arts: Re-appraising the Art of Resistance (Re-opening the archives of anti-apartheid art); 4. The Reflexive Riff: Revisiting Contemporary Negro Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art; 5. The Making of Tucumán Arde (1968), 1997-2012; Part 3. Restaging Modernisms; 6. 15 Polish Painters (MoMA, 1961) Fifty-Five Years Later’ 7. Provenance Research: A New Perspective on Exhibitions from the Past; 8. Copy as Container, Original as Content: ""The Making of Modern Art"" at the Van Abbemuseum; Part 4. Counter-narratives; 9. Reading Between the Lines: Locating the politics of Lucy Lippard’s Six Years; 10. Reconstructing Exhibitions in ""Times of Interregnum"""
Natasha Adamou is a senior lecturer in Art History at the BA Culture, Criticism and Curation, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Previously she was a research fellow in Sculpture at the Henry Moore Foundation – British School at Rome (2015–2016), and an early career research fellow in Critical and Historical Studies at Kingston School of Art (2016–2018). Natasha specialises in modern and contemporary art, including exhibition histories, with an emphasis on histories of decolonisation and immigration. Her research focuses on neo-conceptual art and the lives of diasporas in Britain, especially with regard to conceptions of race, diversity, ecology and health. Michaela Giebelhausen is an independent scholar and associate lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art since 2020. Between 2014 and 2020, Michaela was a course leader at the BA Culture, Criticism and Curation, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and a senior lecturer in Art History at the School of Philosophy and Art History, University of Essex, until 2014.
